Rexal Housewives of Bexar County

(The X’s are silent)

I don’t actually watch any Real Housewives shows.  Because they are trash.  And I’m going to say it unapologetically.  You have better things to do with your time, too.  But what I know of them comes from the covers of magazines I pass in the checkout line: they are brawny, botoxed and tanned.  They look like their skin will be ready to become the gigantic purse they have slung over their shoulders in a couple of months.  Their lives are consumed with intrigue, in-fighting and showing off cleavage.

They are nothing like Real Housewives. And I would like to submit that Real Housewives elect a different face.  Someone who really represents us.  I can think of 12 housewives right now that I would rather see on TV.  Unfortunately, the only really great mom on TV is Super Nanny, and she isn’t even anyone’s real mom.  She just helps the dead beat moms learn to do their jobs.  So I am proposing a new show!  Real moms who are awesome.

In order to give the viewers out there an idea of what to expect on Rexal Housewives of Bexar County, here is a snapshot of three of the stars:

(Super cool theme music provided by Meaghan Smith.  Fades in on an alarm clock going off)

Marie wakes up earlier than her kids, sneaks out of the house for a run before they come to.  Trips over the pile of shoes in the darkened hallway but doesn’t fall.  Spends a half an hour listening to Jad or Ira  while hoping to avoid running into skunks or deer in her suburban subdivision.

Claire wakes up with her kids, embraces them and asks them if they had an interesting dream.  The baby wet through her pajamas so she strips the baby and the sheets off the bed and takes the whole load down to the wash. Then they all go down to start breakfast and get ready for school. The four year old changes her outfit three times before finally declaring success in a tutu, skirt, shorts, leggings and sparkly shirt. Claire is beautiful and wants her girls to be beautiful too, so she sits them on her bathroom vanity, one at a time, and flat irons their hair.

Shelby wakes up and cleans the bathroom after her shower.  Her house is immaculate because she is a neverending tornado of cleaning activity.  She just had a new baby and she still stays in the master bedroom with Shelby and her husband.  Shelby silently gets ready while the baby blissfully sleeps on. She waits to wake up her kids until 7:00 so that she can get a few projects done around the house.

Marie has four kids, two are in school, two are still too young.  They all get up at 6:35 to be on their way to school by 7:30.  Breakfast.  Finding matching socks. Brushing teeth.  Finding backpacks.  Last minute slips to sign, orders to submit.  Finally, like herding cats, they all get strapped into their car seats for the four minute drive to school.  She rushes them out of the car because she has been told that she takes too long to unload at the school’s curbside.  Finally, she exhales in relief.  Package delievered.

Claire has three, the oldest is in school, the middle one is in preschool and she takes her youngest to the babysitter so she can get to her class on time.  She teaches at the University and has her friend, Adele, watch the baby for her.  She pays more than the going rate because Adele’s husband is a student.  They exchange pleasantries and Claire warns her that the baby has been “snotty”.  There are extra tissues in the giant diaper bag. Claire goes off to teach for a couple of hours and returns to pick up her baby and then her preschooler.  Her comings and goings are as well-timed as a train schedule.

Shelby has the four year old Preschool co-op over at her house this morning.  They are making starfish out of construction paper and gluing cheerios on them.  The newborn sleeps through it, except when she needs to eat, which Shelby effortlessly and discreetly does while teaching the four year olds about life on the sea floor.  They sing their nursery rhymes and count the days on the calendar and eat some pretzels and apples and their moms come to collect them.  She lies down on her bed and zones out for a few minutes while the four and two year olds spend some time with Diego. She is startled out of her dream when her four year old comes charging in announcing that the two year old has “peed everywhere!”.  Instantly awake, she starts dabbing at the carpet with a wadded up towel.  While she is doing that, she remembers that she still needs to change the laundry over.  On the way to change the laundry, she notices that the diaper is still in the kitchen garbage that needed to be taken out.  She does that first, then notices that her plants out by the garbage need watering.  And the whole bed needs to be weeded.  Gets out the hose and starts watering.  Oh man, a hornet’s nest up in the eaves.  Hmmm.  I wonder if spraying it would make it fall down.  Turns up the pressure.  Sprays.  Runs for cover inside.  Steps right in the puddle of pee on the carpet.

Marie has alarms set on her phone to go off all day so she doesn’t forget to pick up her bus rider, or put her baby down for a nap, or pick up her oldest from Kindergarten. Unfortunately, she leaves her phone inside when she goes out to mow the lawn and suddenly hears the familiar hiss and growl of the school bus stopping on the corner.  She sprints through the gate and down the street just in time to get her second child off the bus before they drive off. Her second is in the mood to fight, and refuses to answer any questions or eat the lunch she makes for them.  She only wants to watch a show, (which would be totally fantastic for Marie too) but she can’t watch a show if she has “a bad attitude”.  So they both lose.

It’s Claire’s turn to pick up the carpool from school.  She leaves her sleeping baby home because it only takes 10 minutes and it is ABSOLUTELY not worth waking up a baby.  She’d be safer in her crib than in the carseat anyway, (we all reason). She stops to talk to her daughter’s teacher about the upcoming performance and volunteers to make some posters to advertise for it.  She gathers all of the carpoolers together and get in the car.  The kids shriek and laugh and talk and she enjoys their silly conversations.  Aware of her time constraint with a sleeping baby, she gets the kids where they need to go and heads home.  Now to rustle up an afterschool snack for everyone.  She’s probably hungrier than her kids.  She forgot to eat lunch.  Snack, reading, practice the piano! She throws a few loads of laundry through the washer and dryer and listens for her baby to wake up.

“Go play outside while I make dinner” say Claire, Shelby and Marie, simultaneously.

Around the time that dinner is almost ready, Shelby’s husband returns from a 12 hour day at work.  He is exhausted.  The kids are excited and clamouring for his attention.  He is clamouring for Shelby’s attention, and she can’t hear anything over the noise.  Shushing and yelling commences.  This is the time of day when everyone wants to be done with their jobs.  After some calming down, they sit for dinner and hear about what happened that day.  Her husband worked with a difficult resident at the hospital and feels deflated.  She buoys him up and tells him to go hold the baby.  Holding the baby is the best remedy for bad days.

Marie’s family settles down around the dinner table and finally start eating after all the kids individually point out what they will and will not eat from their plates.  Marie and her husband talk about his day at work and then they hear a “Pardon Me!” from their son.  They are glad he is being so polite.  Then again, “Did you hear me?  I said Pardon Me, because I burped in my mouth!” Marie and Stewart share a raised eyebrow.  “Okay, thank you for being polite.” “Isn’t it amazing that I burped IN MY MOUTH?? That’s so CRAZY!!” “Listen Mack, you say Pardon Me because you don’t want people to feel uncomfortable around you when you do something like that.  So it is best not to keep bringing it up.  Because that makes people feel uncomfortable.  Okay? And yes, it’s crazy that you burped in your mouth.” Dinner ends shortly thereafter with mostly clean plates and treat-bribes distributed.

Dinner is over and Claire starts the kids on baths.  The baby gets back into the tub after she is dressed in her jammies because her sisters are still splashing and playing.  So a new new set of jammies and combing her curls again.  The older girls listen to a story and get into bed.  It’s a marathon to just get them to climb in bed–one more drink, one more story, leave the light on, turn the light off.  It takes a few sharp warnings and a threat to just make them go to bed on their own before they finally settle in.  Whew.  Package delivered.

Marie makes it until about 9:00, then she is wiped out.  She wants to do big projects at night once the kids go to bed, like sewing or organizing photos or creating family videos.  But usually all she has time for is doing dinner dishes and sweeping up. She double-checks the locks since her husband works at night, and then goes to bed. Claire is still going strong, preparing her next lecture for class until about midnight.  Shelby hit the sack hours ago, right after her children did. Eight hours later, they start it all again.

(fade out with the theme swelling from the background.  Roll credits.)